Blair: Good Israeli-Gulf relations are the biggest game changer right now
The improving relationship between Israel and the Gulf states was not merely a matter of joint opposition to Iran, the former UK prime minister said.
By DONNA RACHEL EDMUNDSTony Blair, Executive Chairman of the Institute for Global Change and former prime minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland(photo credit: THE TONY BLAIR INSTITUTE FOR GLOBAL CHANGE)
The newly emerging positive relationship between Israel and the Gulf states is the single biggest game changer in the Middle East, former British prime minister Tony Blair has said.In an online interview with Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet, senior rabbi of Mill Hill, organized in partnership with the United Synagogue, Blair lauded the thawing of relations between the Jewish state and the Arab nations, which he pointed to as a sign of genuine progress rather than mere realpolitik."Yes it's true they both have security interests in common. They are both worried about Iran," he said, according to The Jewish Chronicle. "The other thing is that there is a new and emerging leadership in the Middle East that really wants to modernize their countries to make sure that religion isn't abused and turned into a political ideology. That is the single biggest game-changer for the Middle East."On the proposed annexation by Israel of parts of the West Bank, Blair briefly commented that it was "very difficult to see how a Palestinian state survives that," adding: "On the other hand, there are no proper negotiations at the moment. The Palestinian Authority in the last few days has announced withdrawal of cooperation with Israel."An op-ed published on a number of platforms on February 10 gave greater insight into his thinking on the matter, when he suggested that the Palestinians are exasperating the Arab states by assuming that the improvement in relations with Israel necessarily means indifference on the part of the Gulf states to the Palestinian cause."The Arabs are not indifferent," Blair wrote. "They care about the Palestinians, and they care passionately about Jerusalem. But they are exhausted from being caught between the challenges of regional stabilization and modernization, which necessitate a close alliance with America and a burgeoning relationship with Israel, and a cause which they are expected to support but are excluded from managing."Blair suggested that the Palestinians would do better to utilize the new relationship, turning it to their advantage. "Instead of insisting that Arabs have nothing to do with Israel until the Palestinians have negotiated peace, the smart approach would be to encourage good Israeli-Arab relations, bind the Arabs into the negotiation, and then use them to help push the Israelis toward better positions," he wrote.Blair has had extensive experience in the Middle East, having served between 2007 and 2015 as the official envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East, a group of four entities – the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia – established to mediate the Israeli-Arab peace process.Prior to this role, he had been involved in the negotiations as the British prime minister, recalling that the situation at that time was very different to that of today.
"What you have got, in a curious way, is an inversion of what we were dealing with," he told Schochet. "The Israeli relationship in the region was very problematic and the Israel/Palestine had continual peace processes and chance of bring some kind of agreement."By contrast, today "the Palestine track is pretty blocked right now but the Israeli regional issue is actually more promising."
